SEO Glossary

SEO Terms last updated February 2025

An up-to-date SEO glossary with common and advanced terms.

Navigation:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1-0

SEO Terminology

A^

Above the fold

This is the content that’s visible to a website’s visitors before they scroll down. Obviously, it can vary, depending upon the device the visitor is using.

Algorithm

Often also referred to as an “algo,” this is a mathematical process or formula to execute a set of functions. For example, an algorithm determines which page in a search engine’s index is the best match for a given search query.

Alt attribute

This is the alternative text, encoded into a page’s hypertext markup language (HTML) or EXtensible hypertext markup language (XHTML), which should be displayed if an image or another element cannot be rendered in the browser.

Analytics

The information resulting from a systematic analysis of data or statistics, such as the number of visitors to a site, where they landed, where they originated and where and when they exited.

Anchor text

The clickable part of the link you see, often a keyword phrase, but can be a uniform resource locator (URL). Author Doc Sheldon is anchor text, as is www.searchengineland.com.

AI Content

Content generated by artificial intelligence tools. While increasingly sophisticated, it’s crucial to ensure quality, accuracy, and avoid plagiarism. Ethical considerations and disclosure are important.

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

A framework for creating fast-loading mobile pages. While less critical than it once was, it remains relevant for some publishers.

API (Application Programming Interface)

A set of rules and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. Used in SEO for data retrieval and automation.

Authority

A measure of a website’s credibility and trustworthiness, often assessed through metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority.

B^

B2B

Business-to-business, when a business’s customers are other businesses.

B2C

Business-to-consumer, when a business’s customers are end-users.

An incoming link to a web page from another webpage.

Blackhat

Often followed by the word “SEO,” blackhat most commonly refers to practices which are specifically designed to fool search engines into seeing a website as having more value than it really does, almost always in violation of the search engines’ webmaster guidelines.

Bounce rate

This refers to a percentage of visitors who leave a web page without interacting with it.

Bot

A piece of software which autonomously executes specific tasks according to preprogrammed inputs. This can include crawlers, chatbots or malicious bots.

This is a textual “map” of where a page is located within the hierarchy of a website. Breadcrumbs are normally clickable links, which can aid users in backtracking their steps. For example: Home > About Us > Our Team.

Browser

This refers to a graphical user interface which displays HTML files and is used to navigate the Internet.

BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers)

Natural language processing algorithm that helps Google understand context and intent in search queries.

BARD (Behavioral Analytics for Ranking Determination)

System used to analyze user interaction patterns for ranking signals.

B2B/B2C/D2C Business Models^

DTC/D2C (Direct-to-Consumer)

Brand selling directly to end consumers without intermediaries.

B2B (Business-to-Business)

Companies selling to other businesses, requiring different SEO strategies than B2C.

DNB (Digital Native Brand)

Brands that started online without physical presence.

Business Operations^

CMS (Content Management System)

Platform used to manage website content.

PIM (Product Information Management)

System managing product data across channels.

OMS (Order Management System)

System tracking orders and inventory.

C^

Cache

This is the storage of web content in memory, in order to be able to more readily serve them to a user. Caching commonly occurs on both servers and browsers.

Call to action (CTA)

A portion of the marketing message that tries to get a user to perform a certain action.

Canonical

This is an HTML element that indicates the original or preferred version of a piece of content, in order to avoid duplicate content issues.

Canonicalization

The process of specifying the preferred version of a web page when multiple versions exist (e.g., with and without www). Helps prevent duplicate content issues.

Commercial Intent Terms^

BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)

Content targeting users ready to purchase.

TOFU/MOFU (Top/Middle of Funnel)

Content for awareness and consideration phases.

LTV (Lifetime Value)

Customer’s total value over time, influencing SEO investment decisions.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

Cost to acquire new customers through various channels including SEO.

Content

Any information published on a website, including text, images, videos, and other media. High-quality, relevant content is essential for SEO.

Core Web Vitals (CWV)

Google’s metrics for page experience: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift).

CPC (Cost Per Click)

The amount you pay for each click on your paid search ads.

CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report)

Data set of real user experience metrics for how Chrome users are experiencing popular destinations on the web.

CSS

Refers to a cascading style sheet which is a file dedicated to telling browsers how a page should be displayed, in terms of font style, size and color. It also denotes the size, spacing and location of other HTML elements. It is a much more efficient method than inserting what may be highly repetitive data if inserted with each individual element.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Percentage of impressions that result in clicks.

D^

This refers to an inbound link to a page other than the home page of a website.

Disavow

At times, a site may receive inbound links from another web page of low quality or dubious character. If the site owner does not want these links and is unable to have them removed, the site owner may submit a disavow file listing the low-quality links via a disavow request. This is basically saying, “We prefer this link/domain be ignored.”

Domain

Each website has its own domain, which is part of its URL. In the URL for this page, the domain is searchengineland.

Duplicate content

This refers to blocks of content on a page which are identical or highly similar to content on another page, either on the same or another domain.

DA/PA (Domain Authority/Page Authority)

Metrics developed by Moz to predict how well a site/page will rank.

DR (Domain Rating)

Ahrefs’ metric showing the strength of a website’s backlink profile.

E^

E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

Framework Google uses to evaluate content quality, particularly for YMYL pages.

Engagement

Metrics that measure how users interact with a website, such as time on page, bounce rate, and pages per session.

Entity

A thing or concept that can be uniquely identified. Search engines are increasingly understanding entities and their relationships.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

Framework Google uses to evaluate content quality, particularly for YMYL pages.

This is an outbound link from a page to another page on a different domain.

F^

A concise summary of an answer displayed at the top of Google’s search results.

FST (Featured Snippet Type)

The format of a featured snippet (paragraph, list, table, video).

Frames

Two or more documents are loaded independently and displayed on the same screen, each within a frame. It’s not advisable to use frames since search engine spiders have trouble navigating them.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Schema markup for frequently asked questions.

G^

Google Analytics

A web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic.

Google Search Console (GSC)

A free tool that provides insights into how Google sees your website.

GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer)

A type of large language model used for content generation.

gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains)

Top-level domains like.com,.org,.net.

H^

HCU (Helpful Content Update)

Google’s algorithm update focusing on people-first content creation.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

Secure version of HTTP; a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.

The head of a document contains elements such as the document’s title, metadata, scripts, styles and more. It will not contain any of the page’s content which is to be displayed.

Heading

In HTML, headings (H1 through H6) can be used to indicate the context of the content immediately following them in the hierarchy. They are generally used to emphasize titles or text on a page, with the H1 tag having the largest text.

hreflang

This refers to an HTML attribute that indicates to the search engines the language and geographic region for which the page’s content is intended.

.htaccess

This is a web server configuration file containing commands to direct the server’s behavior in certain circumstances..htaccess is used by Apache servers and some other National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) compliant servers.

HTML

Hypertext markup language. This language is the heart of the Web, defining the content which is to be displayed and how it should be displayed.

HTTP

Hypertext transfer protocol. This is the protocol used across the World Wide Web, defining how messages are formatted and transmitted, as well as how servers and browsers should respond to various commands.

This is a hypertext link between one point on the web and another. Clicking on a hyperlink will take the user to the destination point.

HOW (HowTo markup)

Schema markup for how-to content.

I^

Index

The repository of pages a search engine has crawled and indexed, making them available for inclusion in the SERPs.

Information retrieval

The systematic process by which information is searched and extracted from the search engine’s index.

These are hypertext links between two web pages of the same domain.

IP address

Internet Protocol address. A unique string of numbers separated by decimal points which identifies a device and serves as its address point on the internet.

Indexing

The process by which search engines add web pages to their index.

A link between pages within the same website.

IAR (Image Aspect Recognition)

Part of Visual Recognition Signals, focusing on image aspect ratios.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

A Core Web Vital metric measuring responsiveness.

IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names)

Domain names that use non-ASCII characters (e.g., accented letters, Cyrillic script).

J^

JS

JavaScript. A text-based programming language used in web development to enhance web pages and make them more interactive.

JavaScript

A programming language used to add interactivity to web pages. Can impact SEO if not implemented correctly.

JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data)

A format for structured data markup.

K^

Keyword

A word or phrase that people use to search for information online.

Keywords

These are words which appear in the content on your web pages and are used in search queries. As search engines have evolved, matching a query to a term found in a document has evolved from exact match terms to synonyms to contextually relevant terms.

KPI

Key performance indicator. This is a measurable value that indicates the effectiveness of a business operation. It may include such factors as gross profit margin, cash flow, market share, inventory turnover and more.

Keyword Research

The process of identifying relevant keywords to target in your SEO efforts.

L^

Linkbait

A piece of content created to attract inbound links.

The process of acquiring backlinks from other websites.

This aggregate presentation of all of a site’s inbound links presents the search engines with an image of the site’s value, as perceived by other sites.

Log file

A file that records web server activity.

Local SEO

Optimizing a website for local searches, targeting users in a specific geographic area.

LSI Keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing)

Keywords that are semantically related to your primary keyword.

LLM (Large Language Model)

A type of AI model used for natural language processing.

LP (Local Business markup)

Schema markup for local businesses.

M^

Manual action

If during a human review, a web page or site is determined to be in violation of the search engine’s webmaster guidelines, a manual action may be implemented which will have a detrimental effect on rankings. These actions can affect a single page or may be applied across the entire domain.

Meta Description

A short summary of a web page that appears in search results.

Metadata

This is a set of data that is not always displayed by the browser which provides information to the search engines about other data on the page.

Mobile-First Indexing

Google’s approach of primarily using the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.

MUM (Multitask Unified Model)

Google’s AI system that understands multiple languages and formats simultaneously for complex search queries.

MCI (Mobile Crawl Index)

Google’s index specifically for mobile content.

ML-SEO (Machine Learning SEO)

Using machine learning to improve SEO performance.

N^

NLP (Natural Language Processing)

Field of AI focused on enabling computers to understand and process human language.

Nofollow

At times, it may be considered necessary or even helpful to link out to a resource which is of questionable veracity or dubious quality. Adding a nofollow attribute to a hypertext link essentially tells the search engines that you don’t vouch for the target page.

Noindex

This meta tag can be added in a document’s head to tell the search engine that the page should not be allowed to appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

NIL (Named Item Linking)

System for connecting entities across different content pieces.

O^

Organic

This refers to search results which do not include any paid advertising.

On-Page Optimization

Optimizing elements within a web page, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and content.

A link sitting on a web page which links to a page not found on the same website.

ORG (Organization markup)

Schema markup for organizations.

P^

Page Experience

A set of signals that Google uses to evaluate the overall user experience of a web page.

PageRank

This is a calculation to determine the overall quality of a page, based upon many factors, the most important of which is still considered to be inbound links.

Panda

This was a new search algorithm, launched in February of 2011, which focuses on detecting low-quality or “thin” content.

PASF (People Also Search For)

Related searches that Google displays at the bottom of SERPs.

Penguin

This algorithm, launched in April of 2012, focuses on the quality of inbound links.

PBN (Private blog network)

Interlinked websites owned by the same entity. Some PBN’s are considered manipulative because they exist to host content and links as a way to influence the SERPs. Once a highly effective technique, it has become increasingly difficult for such networks to avoid detection.

PAA (People Also Ask)

Questions related to the search query that Google displays in SERPs.

PEACE Framework

A framework for evaluating content quality: Purpose, Experience, Authority, Coverage, Enhancement.

PQ (Page Quality)

Recent Google metric focusing on overall page quality signals.

Publisher Types^

UGC (User Generated Content)

Sites relying on user-created content.

MGC (Merchant Generated Content)

Content created by sellers on marketplace platforms.

PGC (Professionally Generated Content)

High-quality content from professional creators.

PWA (Progressive Web App)

A web app that behaves like a native mobile app.

Q^

R^

RankBrain

This algorithm, confirmed by Google in October of 2015, is a machine-learning algorithm which examines search queries the search engine has never seen before and attempts to correlate them with queries it already knows.

Ranking

The position of a web page in search results.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

Method combining search retrieval with AI generation for more accurate content creation.

Two web pages on two different sites link to each other on purpose. Large numbers of reciprocal links can be seen as manipulative linking schemes if the links are placed for the sole purpose of influencing the way a web page ranks.

Redirect

This is a technique by which a hyperlink to a destination URL is redirected to a different URL. The most commonly used redirects are 301 (permanent) and 302 (temporary), although there are others which are rarely used. (See Status Codes)

Responsive

One method of site design which resizes the displayed elements to suit the viewport of the device viewing the site. Thus, a site can be easily viewed and read from a desktop, tablet or phone.

Revenue Models^

CPL (Cost Per Lead)

Revenue model based on lead generation.

AOV (Average Order Value)

Metric affecting e-commerce SEO strategy.

RPM (Revenue Per Thousand Impressions)

Important for publisher and advertising-based websites.

Rich snippet

By using structured data markup, such as schema, microformats or Resource Description Framework in Attributes (RDFa), small samples of a site’s content can be shown in the SERPs, often enticing more users to click through to the site.

Robots.txt

A file that tells search engine crawlers which pages to crawl and which to ignore.

ROI (Return on Investment)

Measure of profit or loss on SEO investment.

S^

Schema

This is a semantic markup involving specific ontologies which classify objects and shows the relationships between them.

Schema Markup

Code added to a web page to provide search engines with more information about the content.

Search Console

Previously called Google Webmaster tools, is a suite of free services from Google to check indexing status and optimize a site’s visibility.

SERP

Search Engine Results Pages. Web pages of ranked results provided in response to a search query.

Server logs

One or more automatically generated logs of all actions performed by the server, often helpful in determining what caused a problem to occur.

Server side includes

Also known as SSI. A way to retrieve portions of a page from another web page.

SGE (Search Generative Experience)

Google’s AI-powered search interface that provides AI-generated summaries and interactive results.

These appear in some results in the SERPs, where numerous internal links are provided, making it easier for users to navigate directly to the portion of the site that interests them.

Sitemap

A hierarchical model of a website’s content, typically constructed in HTML, to aid users in navigating the site to inform the search engines of the site’s content.

Sitewide

This refers to linking and navigational structure that is employed on every page of the website, such as in the sidebar or footer.

SLI (Spoken Language Implementation)

Optimizing content for spoken language queries.

SSL

Abbreviation for Secure Sockets Layer. This is the standard technology for establishing an encrypted pipeline between the client (browser or email client) and the server.

Status code

Numeric responses given by web servers in response to a call from a browser. Each different numeric code signifies something different.

Subdomain

An internet domain which is part of a primary domain. For example, in the URL https://blog.searchengineland.com/, ‘blog‘ would be a subdomain of the primary domain searchengineland.com.

Schema Types

Various types of schema markup, including FAQ, HOW, ORG, and LP.

T^

Taxonomy

This refers to a system of classification and is particularly important in faceted navigation such as is normally present in an e-commerce site.

TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency)

Mathematical formula determining how important a word is to a document within a collection of documents.

Title tag

HTML that creates the title of a web page and generally tells humans and search engines what the page is about. It is located in the section of a web page and what (usually) shows up in the search engines organic results.

TLD

Top-level domain. This is the general classification of all domains under the TLD. For instance,.com,.net,.org and.edu are all TLDs, although there are now many others.

Technical SEO

Optimizing the technical aspects of a website to improve crawlability and indexability.

U^

UGC

User-generated content. Content on a web page which is created by users, rather than by the site owner or webmaster. Forums and blog comments are both forms of user-generated content.

Unique visitors

People (searchers) who have visited a web page once during a specific period of time.

UPT (User Perception Tracking)

Part of Page Quality, focusing on how users perceive the page.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator. Sometimes called the web address. For this site’s home page, the URL is https://searchengineland.com. However, that’s not the actual address. The URL is translated to our IP address, 208.80.6.139, by the domain name server.

User-agent

Every user on the internet has its own user agent, browsers, clients, crawlers, even feed readers and media players. The user agent identifies the user to the server, which, in turn, identifies itself back to the user via its own user agent.

URL Components

Different parts of a URL, including CCTLDs, gTLDs, and IDNs.

V^

Refers to a type of specialized search that returns results from a specific area.

VEO (Voice Engine Optimization)

Optimizing content for voice search.

Vlog

A blog in video form.

VRS (Visual Recognition Signals)

Factors considering image and video content for rankings.

VCO (Visual Content Optimization)

Optimizing visual content for search engines.

W^

Webmaster Guidelines

These are guidelines are published by search engines, describing behaviors and practices which the search engine considers to be acceptable. Failing to comply with those guidelines can result in a loss of rankings or punitive action.

Website Business Types^

SAAS (Software as a Service)

Subscription-based software companies requiring specific SEO approaches.

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

Platforms providing services to other businesses.

MaaS (Marketplace as a Service)

Digital marketplaces connecting buyers and sellers.

White hat

This is commonly believed to imply following only practices which are deemed acceptable under the published Webmaster Guidelines.

Widget

An element of a graphical rather than a textual user interface that prompts users to act or displays information. It is usually a stand-alone element that can be embedded in a web page as an advertisement or interactive experience. Google frowns on using widgets like this one as linkbait.

X^

XHTML

eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language. A language which reformulates HTML 4.0 in XML syntax.

XML

eXtensible Markup Language. This markup language uses a different syntax from HTML and considerably extends the vocabulary available with HTML.

XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps in XML format, used to inform search engines about the pages on a website.

Y^

YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)

Pages that could impact readers’ future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.

Z^

1-0^

301

The URL has moved permanently. When you want to change the URL of a web page listed in the search results, use a 301 redirect.

302

Known as a temporary redirect.

403

Forbidden. The server refuses action even though the request is valid.

404

Not found. The page/resource is not found.

503

A server is down for maintenance or because of too many requests, usually a temporary state.